Chicken Farm
By Dan Tow • Dec 30th, 2007 • Category: Politics • (10,862 views) • 12 Commentsby Dan Tow (with a nod to Mr. Orwell)
To my readers: I wrote the following before the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Apart from my deep sadness for all the people killed, I was terribly sorry that the assassination denied the people of Pakistan their full range of choices in the scheduled election. Assassination is foul murder, and also a tragic crime against the voters, a form of the most serious treason against the nation, when the party assassinated is an elected official or someone who could be elected in the future. I don’t know what else to say on the sad subject, so I turn to what I’d already written, in hopes it still finds an audience. I beg pardon, too, if you feel that the following would have been more appropriate at another less mournful time.
I thought I’d try a change of pace, so I beg pardon from my kind readers; if you hate it, chalk it up to a silly experiment – I’ll get back to straight political musings next time. Today’s work is a simple children’s tale that popped into my head, with no relevance whatever to politics. None. None at all.
There once was a farmer, who raised chickens with the help of some hired men. The farmer wanted to protect his chickens from foxes and such dangers, so he chose some of his smartest, toughest roosters and trained them to be reliable guards, and they were supremely competent, showing astounding judgement while guarding the farmer’s courtyard, where the chickens were kept.
The foreman of the hired men felt he was generally much more suited to running a farm than the farmer, himself, so he hatched a scheme to take over the farm. He gathered some weapons together and organized the hired men he trusted most, and one day as the farmer was returning home from a trip, he cornered the farmer, and informed him that the farm was no longer his to control, that he must leave, if he valued his life, and must not come back.
Although the foreman was very pleased to be the new farmer, he worried; if he could take over from the old farmer, perhaps a new foreman might take the farm from him, so for years he continued as foreman at the same time that he was the farmer. In general, the neighbors found this arrangement highly irregular, and it was the subject of much disapproval.
One day, the foreman, who was now the farmer, went to get a chicken for his evening meal, and he was shocked when the wise guard roosters raised a loud fuss, and wouldn’t let him get a chicken. This was unheard of, and quite outrageous! It was all well and good for the guard roosters to protect the chickens from foxes, but they were not supposed to protect the chickens from the new farmer! It was after all the farmer’s right to eat as many chickens as he wished, and the guard roosters should only serve him, if he asked, and should not dream of defying him!
The foreman decided that such outrageous behavior must not continue, so he hatched a plan. He found some fertile eggs and took them into the farmhouse where he kept them warm until they hatched. He raised the chicks by hand, so they thought of him as their father. Half were hens, and he released them to live with the other chickens, but he trained the roosters to take over guard duties from the old guard roosters, but of course not to have any crazy ideas about protecting the chickens from him, only from his enemies. He still had to get the old guard roosters out of the way, however. He got the help of all the farm workers, and passed around flashing lights and firecrackers to use so that the farm animals would think there was some sort of emergency. Using these, he was able to chase the old guard roosters into their little homes, where he locked them up. Even cooped up, he was afraid they might cause trouble, so he covered their little homes in blankets so that the neighbors and the other chickens could not hear their crows of protest.
The foreman found the new arrangement much more to his liking – pet guard roosters who were supremely cooperative, and quite courtly in their loyalty toward him, and no trouble arranging a fine chicken dinner every evening. His pet roosters found the arrangement delightful, too. They even enjoyed licking the juices from the foreman’s plate each evening after he finished his dinner. In their judgment, he was the best father a rooster could have, and they swore eternal loyalty to him. They little suspected that if they should cease to be useful to the foreman, he would happily add them to his evening meal’s pot along with their cousins, since to him they were just temporarily useful poultry, not his sons at all, as they imagined.
I have not yet learned what happened next, but I heard an interesting rumor that the chickens on this farm turned out to be no ordinary chickens. In fact, they were as wise as men, as capable as men in every way, and even with the old guard roosters locked away, their example was not lost on their cousins. They all yearned to live lives such as they would choose for themselves, in freedom and safety, and their determination appeared to be quite unstoppable.
Last 5 posts by Dan Tow
- The Right to Remain Silent - June 18th, 2008
- Living with Free Speech - June 6th, 2008
- Free Speech on The Pakistani Spectator - May 1st, 2008
- Limits of Free Speech - April 30th, 2008
- A Recipe for Civil War - March 11th, 2008
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December 30th, 2007
R u refering towards ‘Orwellian Republic of Pakistan’?
December 30th, 2007
It is Orwellian for American officials to claim that Pakistan is on the road to democracy.
Musharraf receives unstinting American support because of his turnabout after Sept. 11, 2001, regarding support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. No one doubts his sincerity regarding al-Qaeda; as he writes in his fanciful autobiography, these were the people who several times tried to kill him.
December 30th, 2007
General Musharraf’s promise, this time before the Supreme Court in writing, to doff his uniform soon after his re-election as president from the present Assemblies is an apt occasion to review the promises made in the past and how they were kept. After taking over in October 1999 he titled himself as chief executive. At a press conference soon thereafter, a journalist asked him when he planned to enter the Presidency. Without a moment’s hesitation the general retorted that he would never become president. He said that was ready to write there and then that he would not barge into the Presidency. But when on June 20, 2001, he dismissed Rafiq Tarar and assumed the title of president he described it was “one of the most difficult decisions,” but completely forgot his pledge not to become president. In early 2002, when rumours of a referendum were doing the rounds, General Musharraf was asked in a press conference whether he, too, like Ayub and Zia before him, would hold a referendum to “legitimise” his rule. No, I will never adopt that route, he thundered. “I am neither Ayub, nor Yahya nor Zia,” he yelled at the questioner. But despite his public disavowal, he went ahead with a referendum on April 30, 2002. People were asked if they would like to elect Musharraf for another five years “for the establishment of democracy, end to extremism and to fulfil the vision of the Quaid.” If they said “yes” to the stated objectives he would be deemed to have been “elected” even without elections and without any opposition candidate to oppose him. Five years later, and with the benefit of hindsight, he came to regret it. “The whole exercise ended in near-catastrophe,” he said in his memoirs. He also said that he realised “in Pakistan, unless there is an opposition candidate that can monitor the process, any opinion poll would end in fiasco.” In a claim that would make his predecessors Ayub and Zia turn in their graves, he said the opposition was responsible for the catastrophic referendum. “I later found that this absolutely unwarranted support was helped along by the opposition in certain areas so as to provide supposed evidence for claims of foul play” (In the Line of Fire, page 168). How true that he was neither Ayub nor Yahya nor Zia. General Musharraf’s stress on truthfulness, conscience and keeping promises has been saintly. Addressing the nation on Nov. 20, 2002, he recited verse 34 of the Sura “Bani Israil,” “Always fulfil your promises. No doubt you will be questioned about them.” To reinforce it, he quoted a verse from Sura “Al Maeda,” “O Believers, act upon what you say.” After employing to dramatic effect the diction of Holy Quran he said, “You can judge how far I have kept my promises. You have to decide whether I have ever told a lie; whether I have gone back on my promise.” Then he looked straight into the camera, “Al Hamdo lillah (Thank God) I have always spoken the truth and kept my promise.” He knew that people’s memory is proverbially short. Who would remember his public pledges neither to become president nor to hold a referendum, he must have thought. On Dec. 24, 2003, after an agreement with the MMA, 160 million Pakistanis watched him looking into their eyes and speaking in a tone that seemed remarkably measured and reassuring: “I have decided that I will remove my uniform by December 2004 and relinquish the office of chief of the army staff.” Although some people had advised him not to doff the uniform, he claimed in the speech, he had decided not to heed them because it would be against the spirit of democracy. Then I witnessed him address the joint session of Parliament on Jan. 17, 2004, the first and, unfortunately for him, the last during his eight years. As boos and jeers drowned his speech, he seemed to speak as if in soliloquy. I only recall his raising clenched fists in a show of bravado challenging the MPs before briskly walking away from the House, grimacing and in a huff. From the press reports the next day, however, one learnt that he had also quoted the Quaid-e-Azam, “I assure you that there is nothing more precious in the world than your conscience.” For a fleeting moment I recalled the pledge he had made barely three weeks before to doff his uniform by December that year. Juxtaposing it with “nothing more precious than conscience,” one felt somewhat reassured, despite a serpent of doubt lurking in the mind. But a year later we watched and heard him on TV on Dec. 30, 2004. “The Constitution allows me to retain both offices until 2007. And I shall never violate the Constitution.” There was no value of the promise he had made to the 160 million people, General Musharraf seemed to tell the people on that day because the Constitution, in his view, had given him the right to keep the uniform. After all, the Constitution is the most sacrosanct document that cannot be violated even if it meant breaking a promise. “The uniform was a non-issue,” he said in the same address. “Non-issues” must not bother one’s conscience, he seemed to assert. I vainly searched the dictionaries to find if there were other meanings of “conscience” which were hitherto unknown to me. The lurking serpent of doubt had finally bitten and poisoned the soul as never before. On Sept. 8 this year, General Musharraf invited the intelligence chief of a very dear and brotherly country to his camp office in Rawalpindi to give us a lecture on the hidden meanings of “conscience” and “promise” that were not to be found in the archaic dictionaries. Waving a bunch of papers at the journalists, the visiting prince declared to stunned journalists that a promise made to a member of the royalty was more sacrosanct than the Constitution of Pakistan or the verdict of its Supreme Court. As the prince was lecturing in a ceremony conducted by the press secretary on the value of promise and conscience, the General must have been within hearing distance. The words “promise” and “conscience” acquire strange meanings in an Orwellian state. That is why people put no trust in them even when they are referred to before the most exalted forum.
Note:
Written before the demise of Benazir Bhutto.
December 31st, 2007
wow starts now, Dan, what a piece, what a thoughtful piece. And I am so much intrigued as how much Pakistanis can see in this post of yours, and while we are at it, even every nation can see some thing for herself in this post, including US.
Well done.
December 31st, 2007
I might have enjoyed this post, but its pricky right now atleast for me.
December 31st, 2007
No, you heard wrong at the end, we are rotting ordinary chickens.
We suffer in silence.
December 31st, 2007
Benazir’s assassination would have made the new foreman proud.
December 31st, 2007
In Pakistan, Orwell would have felt right at home, when friends, foes, and allies spinning around in farm.
December 31st, 2007
Perhaps you would find this correlation of Orwell to subcontinent interesting:
The violence and ethnic strife that ensued in the wake of Indian independence must have weighed heavily on Orwell. India was in no position to implement the kind of vision that Orwell had had for its future. At the time the violence was mounting between India and Pakistan, Orwell retreated into self-imposed exile to the island of Jura, off the coasf of Scotland. The move was in reaction to the sudden fame he had gained after publishing Animal Farm. However, the Jura climate aggravated his tuberculosis. During the last three years of his life, Orwell was in and out of hospitals. In a race against time, all of Orwell’s remaining energies were focused on trying to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four. On 21 January 1950 Orwell died in London at the age of forty-six from tuberculosis. In a poignant confluence, on the day Orwell was buried, India was proclaimed a republic - a final moment of connection between the two.
December 31st, 2007
Interesting that a small piece praising Bhutto’s courage should engender so much blame and denial. Whatever promises of safety she may have been given, she put her life on the line — not by being a politician in an environment where an occasional dissident may turn assassin but in a land of assassins and madness. Surely none of our leaders exhibit signs that they would behave as bravely. Whatever her motives, whatever her flaws, this rare valor deserves our admiration.
January 15th, 2008
Sound great…let’s go
July 19th, 2008
If gret leader Muhatarma Benazir Bhuto Shaeed would alive then people would not see the current face of Paksitan. She was the leader leaders.She is alive in the hearts of people here name will remain for ever. I pay her my Salam.
dilljan2001@yahoo.com